Shapinsay

Distant View of Shapinsay from Wideford Hill, West of
Kirkwall

Shapinsay first features in recorded history when King
Håkon IV of Norway
assembled his fleet in Elwick Bay, off what is now the village of
Balfour, in 1263. He was heading south to
what turned out to be defeat by the weather at the Battle of
Largs. This was followed by his
retreat to Kirkwall and
subsequent death in the Bishop's
Palace there on 16 December 1263 (see our
Historical Timeline).

The next major development for Shapinsay had its roots in the
failure of the Rajah of Tanjore, in India, to repay loans made to him in the
1780s by British investors. The MP for Orkney at the time was John Balfour, who
helped persuade the British Government to compensate the investors. The fact
that he had married the widow of a Colonel Mackennan, who had been one of those
investors, boosted his fortune considerably. The Balfour family already owned
property on Shapinsay, and used the Government compensation to buy the rest of
the island in 1790.

In 1847-8, David Balfour turned the earlier and smaller Cliffdale
House into Balfour Castle, which
still dominates the southern end of Shapinsay today. Shapinsay's economy had
done well during the 1700s. Each year the island exported 3,000 tonnes of
burned kelp for the alkali industry, bringing in the incredible sum of
£20,000 per year. With the ending of the Napoleonic Wars, much cheaper
raw materials became available from the continent and the kelp industry died.

David Balfour's response was to reform the agriculture of
Shapinsay. He built the straight roads that are such a feature of the island
today, and divided the land into well-drained 10 acre squares. Not an
excessively modest man, he also laid out a planned estate village on the site
of Shapinsay's main village of Shoreside, which he persuaded the Post Office to
rename Balfour. He also built the nearby
mill and the gasworks.

David Balfour is remembered with mixed feelings on the island. His
improvements were dramatic and much needed, and came at a time when the laird's
more normal response to the economic problems sweeping Scotland was to clear
the land of its people to make room for sheep. Balfour showed that alternatives
were possible. Yet he was also the sort of man who set up an informal militia
so he could call himself "Colonel Balfour": and his tendency to name everything
in sight after himself has already been noted. The only surprise is perhaps
that Shapinsay is not itself now called Balfour. The island's name remained
unchanged however, and the Balfour family sold much of it to the tenants in the
early 1900s. Despite this, today's Shapinsay still owes much to the pattern set
by David Balfour.

From Balfour, Shapinsay's south
coast runs east to the sandy Bay of Sandgarth and nearby Haco's Ness. En route
it passes the Old Church and Kirkyard, which houses the burial ground of the
Balfours. The first church was built here in 1559, the more recent, now also
disused, was built in 1802. The current church is located a little inland.

From Haco's Ness the coast heads north past the shallow indentation
of the Bay of Linton for about seven miles to the Ness of Ork, Shapinsay's most
northerly point. Part way up and a little inland is Mor Stein, Shapinsay's
major standing stone, now clad in a thick coat of green moss. Overlooking the
head of Linton Bay are the remains of a chapel, thought to date back to the
1100s. It is said that a local farmer removed the lintel from the chapel to use
in a byre for his cattle in the early 1900s. He returned it promptly on finding
two of his cattle mysteriously hanged in the byre.

Further north and close to the shore is
Burroughston Broch, an Iron Age
defensive site accessible to visitors. This was originally excavated in 1861 by
George Petrie with the assistance of the landowner, David Balfour. The
shoreline close to the broch provides one of the best opportunities on the
island for seal watching.

The north coast of Shapinsay curves deeply between the points of
Ness of Ork and The Galt, another good site for spotting seals (and sea birds).
At the head of Veantro Bay simply lying on the beach is the large Odin's Stone,
thought to be associated with Viking offerings to Odin.

Shapinsay's west coast returns to the starting point of this
circular tour at Balfour, and tends to be
sandier than the rest of the coastline. En route it passes WWII gun
emplacements at Salt Ness and a picnic area on the coast near Vasa Loch.